


acrophobia.

by stackeddominoes



Series: fear of everything. [2]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Betrayal, Depressed TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Dream Smp, Emotional Manipulation, Exiled TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Gen, Hurt No Comfort, L'Manberg | L'Manburg on Dream Team SMP (Video Blogging RPF), Manipulative Clay | Dream, Sad Ending, Suicidal Thoughts, TommyInnit Angst (Video Blogging RPF), angst without happy ending, mcyt - Freeform, no beta we die like every single character i write
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:22:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29692212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stackeddominoes/pseuds/stackeddominoes
Summary: Acrophobia. The irrational fear of heights.Tommy looks off the edge of his dirt tower and he sees the ground, and it’s so enticing, calling out to him with outstretched arms. If only he wasn't a coward and could decide which way he wanted to get down to it. Falling seemed so, so easy.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), No Romantic Relationship(s), Technoblade & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit, Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit & Phil Watson, TommyInnit & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit & Phil Watson
Series: fear of everything. [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2181987
Comments: 3
Kudos: 110





	acrophobia.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is the second fic in a series so I would highly recommend reading the first one to understand whatever the fuck is going in this. TRIGGER WARNINGS for suicidal thoughts and death. Proceed with warning, folks. Much love to my friends for their support! <<<<<<<<<3

A whistling breeze. Soft, rippling waves. Dirt crumbling and falling under calloused hands. _Just a few more blocks._ The air grows thinner. His arms grow weaker.

Tommy is tired.

He’s been tired for years, more so than he let himself know. Boisterousness disguised it, let everyone think he was fine, he was okay. But if he was honest, he had grown exhausted of life long ago. And now, at the top of a tower he made with weary bones, he feels like doing something about it. 

He wonders if Tubbo can see him now. 

_Is he proud of me? Of all I’ve done?_

He doesn’t know. Phil used to say, with teary eyes, that even though Tubbo was gone, he lived on in the memories they made with him, and he can stay alive that way. He can be with them, here, present. 

Tommy can’t remember Tubbo.

That’s not the whole truth, of course. He knows who Tubbo was, his best friend, his brother. He thinks of him and thinks of laughter, solidarity, companionship. Tommy knows that he’d die for him, and that there’s still a Tubbo-shaped hole in his heart. He knows that life has been different since he left. Duller. 

But he can’t remember Tubbo’s face. Brown hair, brown eyes, small, protruding horns. But what else? Was his smile wide enough to fill his face or soft and barely there? Could his laughter be heard from miles away? Would he have changed as much as Tommy had?

Tommy was a happy kid. The years had ripped his joy away, crushing the loud, boisterous, _annoying_ kid. But he knows he used to be happy.

He had a loving family. One that could be patient with him, and actually laughed at his jokes. One that could never hurt him, not even if they tried, because he loved them too much to notice the pain.

Would Tubbo love him now that Tommy isn’t the same gleeful boy? Or did he hate him for figuring out the flaws of their picturesque family, and throwing years of love back into the face of Phil?

The more Tommy sits in idle silence, the more remorse he feels for doing that to Phil. 

There’s few things Tommy regrets. Wilbur comes to mind first. If Tommy had paid more attention, had stopped idolising his brother, maybe he could have stopped his death. Wilbur was no Achilles. He was merely a man. But Tommy had fed into his ideas like mortality wasn’t a concern, like infinity wouldn’t deceive them with sharp swords and a winged man’s tears.

But Phil is more recent in his list of regrets. _He’s not my father, Tommy tells himself_ , but it’s Phil that raised him. Who taught him how to brew potions and took him flying when he was dismal. He can pretend that Phil meant nothing to him, but the mourning in his heart betrays his mind.

In that same heart, he knows Phil didn’t want to kill Wilbur. But he did, and he was the only person alive that Tommy can feel the satisfaction of blaming. 

He doesn’t want to ponder on it, though. Tommy has already thought it all through. Endless days and nights of monotonous routines that never withheld a form of comfort meant the deafening silence of thoughts, more often than not. It gave him time to build his confidence to do it. It’s given him wings. 

And yet he feels the need to take a moment, breathe the cool air one last time. He’s not stalling. Stalling is for cowards. He’s just compelled to contemplate his life. Not wanting to ponder doesn’t mean he shouldn’t. 

But Tommy’s thoughts are grim. They start plain. Beige and boring. Then they shift, suddenly and yet not unexpectedly, to how Tommy killing himself has been anticipated since Tubbo first walked in the house coughing. 

Because wanting to die runs in the family. Tubbo gave up on his life when his ‘flu’ didn’t clear up like it usually did. Wilbur begged his own father to kill him. Tommy’s caught Phil too many times, falling off a cliff only to release his wings at the very last moment. Techno’s longing looks to the bottom of those same cliffs aren’t any less implicating. 

So yeah, wanting to die is hereditary. Tommy knows he’s next, following in his brother’s footsteps. _It’s just a matter of taking the leap._

He can’t do it. 

Tommy can’t do it.

He looks off the edge and he sees the ground and it’s so enticing, calling out to him with outstretched arms and yet his feet have found immovable purchase on the dirt block. His legs are lead weights. 

Tommy feels like a coward. If he was stronger, he would be able to just fucking do it. If he was stronger, he’d be able climb down.

He voices this to the wind. “I’m not sure which way to get down,” he whispers softly. The breeze keeps blowing. He can still hear horses trotting around. Cows moo softly. No one cares.

_No one cares._

Not his father, who hasn’t come to visit him, because he isn’t important, he’s not the favourite like Wilbur or Techno. Not his last living brother, who is too wrapped up in his own world to seem to care that Tommy is barely alive.

Wilbur. His thoughts drift back to like a magnet to the junkyard. He was the only person who had cared for Tommy in years. He thinks back to late nights sketched with charcoal, where Tommy and Wilbur would yell great glory to the stars, trusting them with promises and secrets of a new land. Tempests would snatch the words before they became anything. It was almost foreshadowing his downfall. 

Because the words swept away by the wind landed in fields of bloodshed and terror and they grew into trees, great tall oak trees whose leaves blocked out love and left only unimaginable horrors. Bombs and crumbling buildings replaced what was supposed to be fireworks and festivals. A wooden button made from those same oak trees destroyed everything.

Wilbur went insane. But Tommy doesn’t think that means L’Manburg doesn’t deserve a second chance. 

_I’ll be better than Wilbur,_ Tommy thinks. _I’ll build something better._

To build something better, though, means living on. It means getting down this cliff, one step at a time, with shaky arms, questioning himself every step of the way. It means moving forward. 

The thought is terrifyingly enticing, so hurtfully hopeful that it chills Tommy’s bones. He shrugs his worn coat closer to him, not for comfort, of course, but to break the wind. As if the old coat would provide any sense of comfort. He toys with the embroidered bees. They’re fraying, the faded thread starkly contrasted by more practiced bees used to patch up holes. The coat is shit. It was cheap, bought years ago as a short-term solution to the winter cold. 

It was supposed to be Tubbo’s.

He never got to wear it.

Tommy wants to die in it. 

But he thinks of Tubbo and he thinks of everything he missed out on because death snatched his breath away. So much that he would have wanted to be a part of and he wasn’t even given the chance. A chance that Tommy still has. A chance that Tubbo would cry to see Tommy give up. 

He can’t do that. Not to Tubbo, not to Wilbur. 

He can’t die. 

It starts to rain, and the water mixes with his tears until the salty taste in his mouth turns fresh and clean, and finally he feels like he has another option. 

Tommy doesn’t need to die.

And in celebration, he sits on the edge of the cliff instead of jumping, and watches the sunset. 

It’s hours later when Dream comes back. 

Tommy doesn’t bother turning around to greet him. 

“Tommy, what are you doing up here?” Dream sounds so concerned, so genuinely worried that Tommy can’t help but laugh. Tears pool in his eyes, and his laughter turns into choked sobs.

“I don’t want to die anymore, Dream.” 

Tommy glances behind him, off the edge of the dirt tower. The moon stares softly back. Dream moves closer, placing both arms on Tommy’s shoulders. A fond smile gently pushes its way onto Dream’s face.

“It’s a shame, really, Tommy. Because that decision isn’t up to you.”

The grip on his shoulders tighten, from comforting to threatening. The smile on Dream’s face slips. Tommy can’t feel the moon’s regard anymore. All he feels is cool wind.

And he’s slipping, falling, down, down, and it takes him a moment to realise his tower is no longer beneath his feet but instead grows taller in his vision. He thinks to try and reach for it, to find his hands refuge in the footholds he used to climb up but everything is frozen and all he knows is how to fall.

Tommy hears his bones cracking and breaking, a hollow sound reverberating around his head, and he can see himself collapse backwards into water, surrounding his face, clogging his airways, but he can’t do anything. So long he spent thinking he was numb to it all, and yet now he truly is, and it’s terrifying.

He should be dead. He shouldn’t have survived that. 

He did, though. And now he’s drowning, and his body is too beaten to stop it. The convulsions break his bones. Water begins to rip at his throat.

Tommy sees the glint of netherite armour descending the tower in his peripheral. He tries to call out to Dream, but the water takes it as an invitation to flow further into his lungs and he’s left convulsing. He tastes metal where the salt water has torn his mouth into delicate shreds. 

Dream picks at his nails, glancing over every ten seconds or so, entirely unbothered. He rolls his eyes at Tommy’s struggle, impatient for his death. 

“You really just don’t die, huh.” 

He’s not looking for a response. Tommy provides one in the form of hacking the blood out of his lungs. 

Dream huffs, picking up his axe and then thinking better of it, putting it away again. He walks closer to the water, and hovers his foot over Tommy’s face. 

Tommy knows this is it. His best friend, the only person he has left, is about to kill him. He stares at the sole of Dream’s boot and hopes the water drowns him first. Still, he braces for impact. At least he gets to die in Tubbo’s coat. 

In his last moments, Tommy wonders if his brothers are watching over him. 

He wonders if they're proud.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! This was a bit shorter than the first part, but I hadn't originally planned a second part so, oh well. I'm currently writing the third and final part of the series, so look out for that! Kudos and comments are very much appreciated. Criticism and compliments are welcomed alike, too. <3


End file.
